"I hate that kind of fellow," said Brogten, loud enough for the friends to hear, as they rose from the table; "fellows who think themselves everybody's superiors, and walk with their noses in the air." "I wonder that you will still be talking, Brogten; nobody marks you," said Lillyston, treating with the profoundest indifference a stupid calumny. But poisoned arrows like these quivered long and rankled painfully in Julian's heart. Yet no sensible boy would have given Julian's reputation in exchange for that of Bruce; for in all except the mean and coarse minority, Julian excited either affection or esteem, and he had the rare inestimable treasure of some real and noble-hearted friends; while Bruce was too vain, too shallow, and too fickle to inspire any higher feeling than a mere transient admiration. Latterly it had become known to the boys that Julian was going up to Saint Werner's as a sizar, and being ignorant of the reasons which decided him, they had been much surprised. But the little clique of his enemies made this an additional subject of annoyance, and there were not wanting those who had the amazing bad taste to repeat to him some of their speeches. There are some who seem to think that a man must rather enjoy hearing all the low tittle-tattle of envious backbiters. "I knew he must be some tailor's son or other," remarked Brogten. "I say, Bruce, we shall have to cut him at Saint Werner's," observed an exquisite young exclusive. Such things--the mere lispings of malicious folly--Julian could not help hearing; and they galled him so much that he determined to have a talk on the subject with his tutor, who was a Saint Werner's man. It was his tutor's custom to devote the hour before lock-up on every half-holiday to seeing any of his pupils who cared to come and visit him; but as on the rich summer evenings few were to be tempted from the joyous sounds of the cricket-field, Julian found him sitting alone in his study, reading. "Ha, Julian!" he exclaimed, rising at once, with a frank and cordial greeting. "Here's a triumph! A boy actually enticed from bats and balls to pay me a visit!" Julian smiled. "The fact is, sir," he said, "I've come to ask you about something. But am I disturbing you? If so, I'll go and `pursue vagrant pieces of leather again,' as Mr Stokes says when he wants to dismiss us to cricket." "Not in the least. I rather enjoy being disturbed during this hour. But what do you say to a turn in the open air? One can talk so much better walking than sitting down on opposite sides of a fireplace with no fire in it." Julian readily assented, and Mr Carden took his arm as they bent their way down to the cricket-field. There they stopped involuntarily for a time, to gaze at the house match which was going on, and the master entered with the utmost vivacity into the keen yet harmless "chaff" which was being interchanged between the partisans of the rival houses.